The World Has Passed Me By

Being oriented with a new company has changed quite a bit since 2004 when I last joined a different company.

For instance, I had to go to a security company to verify my identity.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with a Human Resources manager and of course it was on the computer where we looked at each other. Those are weird to me. I keep looking at my own face, wondering if I should smile, or nod, or look serious.

I also look old when I’m on a zoom call with a young professional.

Then the computer updates and the sign-in procedures. You pick a password, put it in twice more, get a text, enter your last four from your social, answer key questions about the street you grew up on and your mother’s mothers maiden name.

I must have yelled - to my computer - “come on, man, I just wanna visit construction sites!”

But, it’s working out.

The guys I’ve talked to are golfers so I’m thinking there will be some bonding on a course or two.

But, things are truly different in the working world nowadays.

Not to mention the videos that we all have to watch as a homework assignment.

Diversity, inclusion, harassment, violence in the workplace.

I think that has been going on for a while, but at the last place, I’d send my password to Kathy and she’d view the videos.

“You got a hundred,” she said, one day.

“What do you mean?”

“There was a quiz at the end.”

Battling through it all, but let’s do away with the zoom where we can see ourselves as the call goes on….

…looking a little long in the tooth.